The eclectic electronic artist Arms and Sleepers has shared ‘Blood Song (ft. Andreas Schütz)’, a shimmering slice of trip-hop lifted from his 14th full-length album, ‘What Tomorrow Brings’, set for release on March 1st, 2024 via Berlin’s Pelagic Records.
‘What Tomorrow Brings’ is a sonic exploration of artist and producer Mirza Ramic’s experience of fleeing war-torn Bosnia in the early 1990s and the death of his father in the conflict, his life-changing journey mapped over four, distinct musical movements.
Taken from the album’s third movement, ‘Rupture’; ‘Blood Song (ft. Andreas Schütz)’ is a groove-heavy dive into the latent trip hop optimism of the ‘90s, channelling the likes of Bristol’s Wild Bunch crew and early releases on the now iconic Mo’ Wax record label. Ramic’s friend and collaborator Andreas Schütz (aka Pierre Navarron of French electronic outfit, il:lo) provides a warmth of soft synth beds and effortless percussive arpeggios only to be interrupted by a disassociated voice whose unsettling, stream-of-consciousness words linger ominously in the ear as the song continues on...
Talk of storms on the horizon and a yearning for the ‘everyday of yesterday’ sees this heady, introspective rush of nostalgia and youthful insouciance turned to uncomfortable trepidation in a masterful emotional twist that has become a hallmark of Ramic’s incredible body of work as Arms and Sleepers.
Formed in 2006 in Boston, Massachusetts and now living in Berlin, Germany, Ramic has subsequently released 13 full albums and over 20 EPs of glitched out electronic grooves that take as much inspiration from leftfield hip-hop experimentalism as they do from the slowburn ambience and panoramic euphoria of contemporary post-rock.
Where the most recent Arms and Sleepers full-length release, 2022’s ‘former kingdoms’, is peppered with the smoky ambience of a New York jazz bar; ‘What Tomorrow Brings’ is acute, urgent and insistent; with reverb-soaked samples and found sounds backed by complex, driving drum breaks that demand complete attention.
The nostalgic, narrative command of ’Blood Song (ft. Andreas Schütz)’ and the incredible story within ‘What Tomorrow Brings’ are proof that, as Arms and Sleepers, Mirza Ramic continues to blur the boundaries between genre, heritage, expectation and influence to produce music that is pertinent, poignant and undeniably extraordinary.
Arms and Sleepers on ‘Blood Song (ft. Andreas Schütz)’:
This was actually one of the first song ideas I had for the new record, dating back to summer 2021 when I was working on my previous album ‘former kingdoms’. I left it as a demo to be used later on, and its slightly more upbeat and aggressive vibe worked perfectly for Side C of the new album, which is more explosive than the rest of the record. ‘Blood Song’ was much more subdued before I asked Andreas Schütz (aka Pierre Navarron of il:lo, who is also responsible for mixing the new album) to collaborate on this track. He provided a much-needed breath of fresh air into the song with improved drum programming and synth layering. Like the rest of the album’s Side C tracks, ‘Blood Song’ deals with the negative and traumatic aspects of my life’s journey, a sort of a breaking point in my emotions.
